This Strikes Me As Good News
By John Cole March 1st, 2010
Conservative Democrat Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), whose obstinacy during the health care reform process was so frustrating to the progressive community, is officially getting a primary challenge.On Monday morning, Arkansas lieutenant governor, Bill Halter, announced that he would launch a campaign to dislodge Lincoln from her Senate seat. He cited a need to focus on middle class issues, take on Wall Street, and fight back against special interests. Halter, who will call Lincoln personally today and send papers to the state capitol on Tuesday, broke the news of his candidacy through an online video at his site www.BillHalter.com.
See if we can’t knock her off. I’ll set up an ActBlue account later.
*** Update ***
And away we go:
I’m in for $25.00.
Posted in Politics
Yes. This. And more of it.
Honestly, I wish primary opponents for incumbents was a more common occurrence, even for the more progressive members. Keeps them from getting complacent.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:13 pm
You are a deeply naive man, but your heart is in the right place. Good luck in life, John.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:14 pm
I will be in for a $100 on the Act Blue page.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:18 pm
This would be better news if someone running to the left of Blanche Lincoln had much of a chance in Arkansas.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:19 pm
By the time I saw Kos’s post about this on GOS, there were already over 200 comments, so I want to ask this question here: While I more than agree that Lincoln needs to go, what do we really want to do about Nelson, who comes from a state where the majority of people do NOT want health care reform? Is it better to have a frustrating Democrat who only votes with you half the time, or a Republican who will never vote for you (and no, there are no Scott Brown Republicans in Nebraska)?
March 1st, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Please let Halter not turn out to have domestic violence, etc. in his background!
If Lincoln is going down, it would be marvelous to make a run with a less corporatist candidate.
I had always kind of liked Senator Lincoln, until the healthcare negotiations. A pity, but bring on the challenger—if he’s solid.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:20 pm
I’ll donate to that campaign, for sure. I told the DNC, each and every time they’ve called, I will not donate to the party in general until they get their act together. I’d rather spend my money a little more wisely.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Judging on her comments when the Dem Senators met with the Prez, she seems like nothing more than a sack of hair. Most of what I hear is that she would probably lose this fall despite her allegedly centrist (Republican) views. If we’re going to lose the seat, I’d rather lose it with a progressive talking real policy to the people than a coward in a defensive crouch.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:21 pm
This is like getting excited that Joe GreenPETA is running for the Global Warming party in 2012 Pres elections.
At this point, the Repub Senate candy Ark in could shake hands with mothers and then defecate on their babies and still win.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:23 pm
@Andy:
Primaries can help with that, if we’re lucky. Remember, in the end it rebounded hugely to our benefit that Clinton and Obama were forced to spend all summer barnstorming all over the country arguing for liberalism. A spirited Lincoln/Halter primary means lots of media attention to liberals arguing for liberal positions.
(I used to worry about “wasted effort” too, but I think “out of sight, out of mind” is a much greater threat.)
March 1st, 2010 at 12:24 pm
I like Nick’s analysis at comment #73 in the “Fear Factor” thread. He basically questioned how progressive a representative of a conservative state can be. We non-Louisianans can root for a challenge from the left till we’re blue in the face (I kill me), but if the people doing the actual voting like being represented by GOP Lite, there isn’t a damned thing anyone else can do about it.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:24 pm
WHOOPS. Make that, “we non-Arkansans.” The combination of senile dementia and lack of an editing button in Windows 98 is a lethal one.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:26 pm
Put me in for $100 when your Act Blue page goes up. We’ll never have the kind of lock-step discipline that the Republicans exhibit, but Blanche Lincoln went way beyond just going her own way. She came close to sabotaging the Democrats’ signature issue and condemned a whole bunch of her fellow Americans to overpriced shitty health care or no health care at all. Fuck her.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:32 pm
already donated through MoveOn (to honor a pledge to donate to someone who primaries an obstructionist conservadem).
“what do we really want to do about Nelson”
Nobody is requiring him to be an asshole. Why was he involved in HC negotiations if he wasn’t for HCR? He doesn’t have to vote FOR things, but he shouldn’t help filibuster and obstruct.When you’re part of the big tent you’re supposed to pee while facing outside, not inside the tent.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:33 pm
While I agree with everyone saying that there is no way someone running to the left of Lincoln can win in Arkansas… especially in this political climate… I’m totally cool with it. If she can’t beat a primary challenge from her left flank, she’s not going to beat whoever the Republican challenger is.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:34 pm
From Public Policy Polling: “John Boozman will enter the Arkansas Senate race this weekend as the frontrunner. He leads incumbent Blanche Lincoln by an amazing 56-33 margin in our first poll of the race.”
So, apart from the merits, of what possible use is she?
March 1st, 2010 at 12:35 pm
For what it’s worth, the Nebraska Democratic Party wrote a letter to Nelson urging him to support the public option. He refused.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:35 pm
I would like to point out that HCR aside, in Lincoln you have someone who has actively pushed to have the estate tax permanently repealed, something I doubt many people outside of the Walden family in her state would be for, and has actively sought to destroy the EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gasses, and other stuff like that that. If it were just HCR that would be one thing, but it is way more then that.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Has anyone set up an account for Cunningham in North Carolina?
March 1st, 2010 at 12:41 pm
@Ash Can:
Windows 98?! It’s never a good idea to have an OS more senile than you are. Just sayin’.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:42 pm
All I can think of is that great line from Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?—“But ya ARE in that wheelchair, Blanche!”
And she crippled herself.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:42 pm
@Punchy:
Perhaps. But it doesn’t look like Lincoln has much of a chance. This guy might not have much of a better chance, but he figures that he does. And I’d rather spend money on a candidate that does have a chance and force Republicans to spend more of theirs defending their guy, even if he isn’t an ideal candidate. As others have pointed out, she’s been a real pain in the ass for the Senate Democrats, so at the very least, this guy might be a step up.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:43 pm
@Napoleon, you’re underestimating how many people are either confused by Republican messaging (as usual at best ignored and at worst amplified by the media) or self-deluded enough to believe that they either are now, or after a bit more hard work will be, subject to the estate tax.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:45 pm
Pat Robertson sez God hates Chile more’n Haiti:
http://open.salon.com/blog/the.....than_haiti
March 1st, 2010 at 12:51 pm
@KCinDC:
No I am not, and what does that have to do with her pushing it? Quite frankly even if she didn’t push it and just voted for it she should be tossed. The Dems will never be able to get anything done if they have to run the government with crippling deficits.
We need people willing to stand up for stuff like this and if we loose fine, let the Rep come in and try to snuff out Social Security and Medicare and see how that works out for them. But if the Dems ever want to be able to run the govenment on a sane basis at some point they have to make the sale to the people that they have to pay for the government services they want.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:51 pm
What is the duplicate comment note when I haven’t posted all day?
March 1st, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Look, there are only five possible outcomes when an incumbent conservaDem faces a primary challenge:
1) The challenger loses and the incumbent wins—we gain nothing.
2) The challenger loses and the incumbent loses—we lose nothing.
3) The challenger wins and the Republican wins—we lose nothing, and will have another chance to unseat the freshman Republican next time.
4) The challenger wins and goes on to win the election—we win BIG.
5) A third-party candidate pulls an upset victory—we lose nothing, and win quite a lot, even if the surprise winner is a complete loon, the whole system will be in disarray, allowing us to try something really different next time. And the new kid might be someone like Bernie Sanders.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:52 pm
@moe99:
I’m honest to god glad that this was satire. But I had to check the tags at the end to be sure. And the fact that I had to actually confirm it as satire makes me feel empty inside.
March 1st, 2010 at 12:58 pm
He basically questioned how progressive a representative of a conservative state can be.
The other side of this is: how conservative of a candidate can the Democratic Party tolerate before the party’s message becomes entirely muddled?
At some point you have to stop trying to accommodate voters and start trying to educate them. If, say, Arkansas voters are against health care and for repealing the estate tax, they’re wrong, and they need to be told why. (I think their positions are actually the other way around, which is why Lincoln is doubly stupid.)
March 1st, 2010 at 12:59 pm
We are not the party of Lincoln.
That is all.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:00 pm
I wonder what the uninsured rate is in Arkansas?
March 1st, 2010 at 1:00 pm
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
At this point, I’d be happy with a Democrat who doesn’t vote to support a Republican cloture vote even if said Democrat then proceeds to vote against the legislation when it gets to a real (ie majority) vote.
That’s the problem with Lincoln (and the other “centrist” assholes): they’d rather support Republicans than their own party on procedural votes. Since that’s the case, then having a Republican in that seat will make no difference.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Back the truck up.
I thought the rule at this site was that anyone who suggested that any democrat was no better than any republican would be labeled a DFH and should promptly submit themselves for their allotted punching.
Did I sleep through a coup or something?
March 1st, 2010 at 1:00 pm
You may not get someone more liberal than Lincoln, but you can certainly get someone less pain-in-the-assy. Mark Pryor didn’t really try to extort the HCR process, or knee cap the climate change bill.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:01 pm
I think to say that nobody to the left of Lincoln can win is a fundamental misreading of the state. Both sitting senators are Democrats. The governor is Democrat. Three of the four house seats are Democrat. Democrats have a supermajority in the state legislature. Democratic registration vastly outnumbers Republicans. This is not a state for the national party to write off on account of it being in the south.
As for whether or not Halter can get the votes statewide, the lieutenant governor runs separate from the governor in Arkansas.
I still think this one’s going to be a challenge if Halter wins the primary, but eminently doable. If Lincoln heads up the ticket, this seat’s pretty much a lost cause. Sure the demographics played a role in making her vulnerable, but more than anything, she’s triangulating herself out of office.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:03 pm
John Cole:
OT/but could you email me and tell me how to email you? I don’t use Outlook and your contact link in Java Script won’t translate to my email (Lotus or Comcast). I have an idea for a campaign T-shirt I’d like to run by you for your online store.
Thanks.
Jacquelyn
March 1st, 2010 at 1:04 pm
@PeakVT:
Very well put.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:06 pm
Lincoln is well on her way to losing the General pretty much no matter what Halter, or anyone else, does. She’s polling at or below 30 with respect to her Republican challenger. It can’t do any harm to have someone try to bump her off qua anti incumbent who can then run “against washington” just the way she was planning to, and the way the Republican opponent is planning to.
The argument against primaries, that they may split the dem electorate and let the Republican win, simply doesn’t really apply here. Its not a choice between Lincoln/a bad dem and the Republican. Lincoln is going to lose, no matter what. And while she’s losing she’s going to drag the entire Democratic party down since she’s planning to wage her campaign from the right attacking the Dems in washington, siding with the Republicans and the Wal Mart coporations. If she were running a flat out democratic campaign I wouldn’t support the primary challenge. But she’s not. We have nothing to lose, as a party, in putting Lincoln out of our misery.
aimai
March 1st, 2010 at 1:07 pm
@Steeplejack: LOL! Since Bottle Rocket is home from school today (Casimir Pulaski Day FTW), he’s playing on the laptop and I’m stuck with the compusaurus. I think at this point the husband is clinging to this old piece of crap out of sheer stubborn spite, since everyone from his entire IT department at work to Bottle Rocket is pestering him to get a new computer. Windows 98 as thumbnose to the world. Who knew?
I need to take it upon myself to go out someday and get a whole new setup myself—one that does all the stuff I want it to do—haul it home, and call the Geek Squad to come and put it together for me. That way, when M-80 gets home in the evening, I can hit him with a fait accompli (he’s surprisingly good about faits accomplis) and everyone will live happily ever after.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:09 pm
You damn dirty hippies are so ungrateful! Blanche intends to let you have it. And have it good.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:12 pm
@aimai:
I think that’s right. I’d be wary about challenging a Democratic incumbent, even a useless one, who could win—that would be the lesson of NY-23 for you—but Lincoln’s going down in flames.
I have this theory that even in the deep South, a fairly liberal person or at least a regular useful Democrat could still win if he or she can strike the populist and popular note just the right way. Texas did elect Ann Richards once upon a time. Sadly, people don’t feel like testing my theory too often, they don’t run enough.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:12 pm
@Ash Can:
Wait wait wait wait wait. When I was a kid on the North Shore, we never got Casimir Pulaski Day off. All we got was an announcement over the loudspeaker telling us about him. Do you mean that kids these days actually get the whole day off now?
March 1st, 2010 at 1:16 pm
@Andy: He’s a fairly popular politician and he’s already won Lt. Governor, which shows he can command a state-wide audience.
I’m not sure why you’d sell him so short so soon. Hell, Clinton was from Arkansas as Governor. The state is a lot bluer than people give it credit, especially compared to neighbors like Oklahoma and Mississippi.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:16 pm
okay, i kicked in. when will the thermometer update?
March 1st, 2010 at 1:16 pm
The easiest way for a progressive to lose in a conservative state is for us to decide progressives can’t win in a conservative state and never try.
Having said that, someone needs to clearly delineate what makes a conservative state “conservative” before we throw in the towel. Something on the order of 66% of Arkansans preferred socialism when polled on a health care public option.
And, of course, a black man will never be elected President. Just. Can’t. Happen.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:21 pm
@moe99: a hoax per Jonathan Turley.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:22 pm
@joes527:
Our giant inflatable beaver overlords took over. I’d suggest you welcome them, if you know what I mean.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:24 pm
John, did you consult with your loyal readers before aligning yourself so shamelessly with Darth Greenwald and Jezebel Hamsher? And did you have Nate Silver run a regression analysis on Lincoln’s voting record before deciding to dump her? Some of these people are excitable, you know, and might burn their Tunch tee shirts in protest.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:26 pm
@d0n camillo:
and the horse that Road in on her
March 1st, 2010 at 1:28 pm
Will the Beltway hand-wringing be as overwrought as it was for Holy Joe?
I’m in for at least $50 if only to see David Broder cry.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:28 pm
@Trinity: Hoax? No.
Obvious satire. Anyone who would believe that this was real would find The Onion totally baffling.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:29 pm
@jibeaux: Texas competition for state-wide office has been absolutely pathetic. Admittedly, it’s hard to get a state-wide audience in Texas when the GOP basically owns the state at the peak of state government. We’ve got a state SC completely dominated by elected Republicans. I can’t think of a statewide office not held by a Republican. It’s crazy down here.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:30 pm
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): See- it is almost like you don’t pay attention.
We’re against pointless displays of hysteria that lead to lose/lose situations. Like, for example, spending people’s hard-earned money to run commercials against…. Rahm Emanuel. Or attacking Joe Lieberman’s wife. Or voting for Nader in a Presidential race because “there is no difference between the Democrat and the Republican.”
But supporting a candidate in a primary, especially against a shitty incumbent who is going to lose anyway?
March 1st, 2010 at 1:38 pm
There’s a strong taint of DFH here. Apparently, it just depends…
March 1st, 2010 at 1:38 pm
Assumptions being tossed around here by some people as if fact:
-Blanche Lincoln is “the center”.
-No one to the left of “the center” can get elected in a state like Arkansas.
Among the smoke and mirrors generated around this issue is that things like a public option are extreme, “far leftist” positions. Polls show otherwise. Unless you think 58% and upward of the country are far leftists.
What’s pissing a lot of Democrats off about blue dogs like Lincoln and purple people eaters like Lieberman is that they’re taking strongly conservative positions, which represent a minority, and calling it “the center”.
Who knows who can get elected in Arkansas. Bill Clinton got elected in Arkansas. I’m not saying he’s a leftist by any stretch of the imagination but I bet a lot of people thought someone like him couldn’t get elected there either. Or thought that a Republican couldn’t get elected in Massachusetts.
The Republicans try to convince people that their extreme rightward positions actually represent “the center”, that’s the whole point. The media enables this nonsense and too many people buy it.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:40 pm
@Zifnab: Sorry, no. Ex-Arkansawyer here, and that isn’t true.
The reason that Arkansas stayed Dem as long as it did was Clinton, and, with his exit from the stage, the state is moving smoothly and inevitably towards its natural slot as a slightly-more-insane Oklahoma.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:40 pm
@Zifnab:
Jeez, is the state doing okay? Hows the budget?
cain
March 1st, 2010 at 1:44 pm
@John Cole: This. Blanche Lincoln is going down, one way or the other. Do I think that Mike Beebe’s sidekick has a sick dog’s chance in a junkyard of winning the Senatorial seat? Um…no—but I’d rather have Lincoln thrown out by a Democrat than by a Republican. It makes the future threat to incumbents who might win in a general but will be threatened by a primary real, and it sends a message “Yes, we will replace you with a Republican if you’re bad enough.”
March 1st, 2010 at 1:45 pm
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Has Jane Hamsher finally started talking about primarying people instead of telling us what a genius Grover Norquist is and how we should all be allying ourselves with the teabaggers? Funny, she sure kept her mouth shut about that option all spring and summer and fall when she was shrieking about killing the bill and people like me were asking where the primary candidates against Lincoln and Bayh were.
Hamsher jumps on the bandwagon when she sees it rolling away. Gee, there’s a shocker.
March 1st, 2010 at 1:55 pm
Did Marcia Coakley ever get her $10 grand?
March 1st, 2010 at 1:59 pm
I think the challenger, any challenger, any non-incumbent, has a shot because Senators still don’t know how appalling watching their dithering was.
They hedged. They preened. They played those ridiculous coy games. They so clearly enjoying wielding power over the process, and performing for cameras. All that phony concern and sanctimony and bleating. I was disgusted.
They think people follow their (alleged) thought process and wait breathlessly for their decisions, but I don’t think they do. Casual observers expect them to act definitively and in a (relatively) straightforward manner. Just do the job.
This was the biggest piece of legislation in years. Watching Our Senate behave like Lords and Ladies in no hurry to fix what ails the struggling populace was not pretty.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:01 pm
@Mnemosyne: City of Chicago only. The CPS kids have today off. The North Shore kids are still SOL. :)
March 1st, 2010 at 2:08 pm
Cool but:
They all say that. Much funnier would have been:
March 1st, 2010 at 2:09 pm
@kay: That’s really it.
I think people lose track of something big here: If these people want to say “Look my state is conservative and I have to represent what they want, so I might vote no on a bill with a public option” that would be fine. That’s what they’re there for.
That’s not what they’re saying though. What they’re doing is threatening to join the Republicans in filibustering so no bill can come to a vote.
That’s ridiculous. That’s a fanatically right wing position that says “This is so important on principle that I have to stop the entire country from having it, even if a majority of them want it.”
And it’s that filibuster-joining that they’re threatening with and using as a bargaining weapon, not their vote.
Enough already.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:10 pm
@jibeaux:
I agree. I think an economic populist always has more of a chance in the South than the CW often believes. It’s frankly more important that they trend conservative on social issues than on economic ones. But so often Southern Democrats decide to tilt right all the way to get big money on their side. And they end up losing.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:17 pm
@Ash Can:
Here is the problem I have with this logic. I don’t think people necessarily have a problem with liberal positions. What they have a problem with is politicians that are afraid to take a stand. I happen to think liberalism in general is more attractive to most people than conservatism if you do a good job of selling it. So many Democrats are afraid of getting beat up by the big bad Republicans so they take mushy positions and wind up getting beaten to a pulp anyway.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:18 pm
@kay:
This.
I like to think of myself as being reasonably well informed about congressional process and the history of sausage making. Got a dog-eared copy of Ornstein’s The Broken Branch at home to peruse when I need a reminder that process matters. And even I was nauseated by the sordid spectacle of the Senate at work this last year. For the first time in my life I felt a tiny glimmer of sympathy for the folks in Second Republic France and Weimar Germany who were so sickened by the behavior of their political parties at work that they gave up on parliamentary democracy as hopelessly broken, and started looking for something else.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:20 pm
Somebody didn’t take his pain meds. It’s gentle ribbing, John, and not even of you.
Like a moth to flame.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:22 pm
This will be interesting. I guess this is a good thing, but Blanche has got a lot of money in the bank (Wal-Mart money?).
I don’t think that Bill Halter will be much “better” than her, from a liberal point of view. Arkansas will soon be a typical part of the south, but the Democrats need to keep it until they can get the 2 senate seats of Maine. But a replacement might at least take the anti-incumbent pressure off that seat. And the state executive is pretty popular in Arkansas (almost all of them are Democrats). Gov. Beebe has got ridiculous favorability ratings (above 70%). Halter will not be far away from that.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:22 pm
@Andy:
Yeah, I’m not sure about this.
It’s possible for someone running to the left of Lincoln to have more of a chance than Lincoln herself, if Lincoln is in that sweet spot of turning off her own party while failing to impress the other side. Her rightness certainly doesn’t seem to be impressing any actual right wingers right now. Her rightness also completely eliminates any opportunity to make overtures that could move the state itself left—for example, speaking to the rural poor and say you want to bring them health care while the right wants to deny it. Oh wait, Lincoln has also stood in the way of health care. Lincoln also has a particularly unfortunate form of right-wing-ness, one that’s inspired less by ideology or anything that could connect with real right wingers and inspired more by just blatant corruption. I don’t think being to the right helps you much if everyone knows you’re only right wing because you’re being paid off. And so on.
I don’t really know enough about Halter yet to say if he can pull off the trick of having a better chance than Lincoln, but looking at how fundamentally weak and unpopular Lincoln is, it seems like you’d almost have to be to the left of Michael Moore for your chances to be any worse.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:38 pm
@joes527:
Some people will never get it, no matter how often you punch them. I recommend that you not waste your time or energy on that one.
March 1st, 2010 at 2:59 pm
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Oh, so when you claimed that Hamsher was calling for Lincoln to be primaryed this summer, that was a joke?
I get it now.
March 1st, 2010 at 3:08 pm
@Sentient Puddle: And McCain cleaned Obama’s clock by 20 points. Arkansas has voted for the Democratic candidate in Presidential elections exactly twice since 1976 – both times for their favored son, Bill Clinton.
Statewide, the only way a Democrat can be elected is to be extremely moderate. I don’t know how far to the left this guy is from Lincoln, but I would imagine not very much.
I’m only guessing, but I think Arkansas will by electing a Republican Senator in November.
March 1st, 2010 at 3:12 pm
@mcc:
Or as Harry Truman put it: Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.
March 1st, 2010 at 3:14 pm
???
You don’t have to be a close follower of FDL to know that Hamsher has been calling for various pols to be primaried for years. She personally recruited Halter several months ago. Here is Accountability Now’s home page for more info on their various efforts. I’m not really sure where your question above comes from but you look like an idiot when you insinuate that Hamsher spends all her time palling around with Grover Norquist.
Just as an aside, did you know that Nate Silver co-signed a letter with Grover Norquist? Did you know that factions of the Tea Party movement have ostracized Grover Norquist over his “liberal” immigration stance and accommodationist view of the Muslim world (links too numerous to list)?
March 1st, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Oops, left out the Accountability Now link.
March 1st, 2010 at 3:58 pm
@Church Lady: Forgive my ignorance, but isn’t Lieutenant Governor generally a statewide position?
March 1st, 2010 at 3:59 pm
since there is no longer 60 votes, I don’t care if Lincoln goes down.
March 1st, 2010 at 4:04 pm
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Fucking Nate Silver, ruining America.
March 1st, 2010 at 4:16 pm
I just threw some money ($50) at our problem of lame corporate Dems.
March 1st, 2010 at 4:24 pm
Here’s an AP story featuring interview with Blanche Lincoln. Gives a good account of how constrained she is—that she might actually BE representing majority view in Arkansas.
http://newsok.com/ark.-senator.....eed/137259
Seriously, what DO people in Arkansas have against reforming healthcare? It’s hard to believe they might lead the nation in healthcare access.
March 1st, 2010 at 4:27 pm
@Church Lady: Alright, you got one counterexample there. That’s why I listed a ton of stuff.
Besides, if the presidential vote is the big indicator of how people will vote for other statewide offices, Arkansas, Maine, Montana, Alaska, the Dakotas, West Virginia, Massachusetts, and countless others are doing it wrong.
@norbizness: And yes, you’re right. Even more so than many states, because governor and lieutenant governor are elected separately in Arkansas.
March 1st, 2010 at 4:46 pm
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
And yet this summer when it mattered, instead of publicly talking about primarying politicians and doing something useful, she got into bed with Grover Norquist and ran around screaming that we should kill the bill.
The fact that she finally figured out in December that her actions of the summer and fall were a mistake doesn’t magically fix the damage that she did.
And I find it pretty disingenuous that you’re conflating Hamsher’s actions in joining up with Norquist specifically to try and kill healthcare reform with Silver signing a document urging that the president institute an official Question Time. One of these things is not like the other.
March 1st, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Beating Blanche would be the equivalent of pissing yourself in a dark blue suit: It feels good, and no one knows you did it. No Dem will win that seat this year, so knocking her off would be the feel-good but ultimately fruitless story of the year.
March 1st, 2010 at 4:57 pm
OK, went to ActBlue and I’m in for $25
Awaiting further orders, Colonel Cole. (j/k)
March 1st, 2010 at 5:14 pm
@Jacquelyn:
In case Cole doesn’t see your message, his e-mail address is “jcole” at this site.
March 1st, 2010 at 5:48 pm
This is where Kos and “the left” are correct (and I think this community buys into as well) – more and better democrats please! Primary all of them all the time. Keep our side passionately involved with our elected officials and make our elected officials know that there are no such things as “safe” seats.
Its a tough stance to walk as we need to get things done and you have to work with what you have elected. But the Lincoln’s, Nelson’s and Lieberman’s will do nothing to support “the left” if they arent afraid of losing their job. Hell, they probably arent afraid no matter how much pressure is put on the them anyway (see Lieberman / Lamont).
The 50 state strategy and “more and better democrats” should always be first and foremost. If a seat “cant” be won, do the hard, long yards to make it winnable in the future. And that means “more and better democrats”.
And on a personal note – Ive never liked Lincoln, but when she spouted that “never had to make payroll” comment and the unnecessary hippie punching at the Dem retreat with Obama I hate her with a passion. Please begone!
March 1st, 2010 at 5:48 pm
@Ash Can:
I figured it was a really old computer. Didn’t realize it was also a political statement on the spouse’s part. But, jeez, you’d think he could get it up to at least XP, a fairly non-senile OS. You can buy really cheap installation disks at those hole-in-the-wall computer places, then do all the updates on line from the Microsoft site.
March 1st, 2010 at 5:52 pm
@Steeplejack:
This is just uncalled for.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:05 pm
There is so much rewriting of history and sheer irrationality in this comment that I don’t even know where to begin responding. I’ll just point out that by your own half-witted standards John Cole is three months behind Hamsher’s curve and a mere one degree of separation from Grover Norquist’s bed. But by all means, keep entertaining us.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:06 pm
@Llelldorin:
The problem is America as a whole is a hell of a lot more liberal than Arkansas. This is one of only a few states where a majority opposed abortion. Hell, a majority isn’t certain Obama was born in the United States.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:21 pm
@NHCt:
Worse yet, wait until Halter gets crushed and the media makes a mountain out of the fact that 30%-35% of registered Democrats voted for Boozman and they blame it on “liberals alienating them in the primary”
“The party went too liberal, lose their own voters”
March 1st, 2010 at 6:24 pm
@Mnemosyne:
Since Lincoln happily supported cloture in legislation like the stimulus and jobs bill, the question is, rather have a Democrat who support 50% of cloture votes or a Republican who supports 0%.
We need to be realistic. If we think we can get a better Democrat elected in Arkansas, then great, if not, we’re just embarrassing ourselves when Halter gets crushed and the media proceeds to blame it on the DFH.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:26 pm
I sincerely doubt that there’s a snowball’s chance in Hell that the state of Arkansas is going to elect a new Democratic senator more liberal than Blanche Lincoln, particularly in the current political environment. If people want to mount a fucking holy war on the old gal, the most likely outcome would be another Republican in the senate—either by replacing Lincoln with a candidate too liberal to be viable while simultaneously turning it into an open seat race, or by forcing her too far left to pivot successfully back to center (actually in Arkansas, better make that center-right) for the general election.
So no. I certainly won’t be donating one damned cent to that cause.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:34 pm
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Only if you ignore that John has said many times that we need more primary challenges. But that would require that you keep more than one thought in your head at the same time and that you hadn’t already forgotten all of the events of this summer, so I’m not expecting that kind of honesty from you anytime soon.
Remember when Hamsher and Norquist demanded that a fourth investigation of Rahm Emanuel’s actions at Fannie Mae be opened even after he was cleared three previous times by Bush administration officials? Good times, good times.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:38 pm
@Dr. Psycho:
In this scenario, we lose everything. we’re going to have to defend the primary as worth it when we get beat for “running an unelectable liberal in a red state” and we will have to deal with the endless parade of “Lamont, Halter, when will the liberals learn.” It is less likely to get other conservative Democrats to fear us because they will say “It’s me or the seat goes red, and you can’t primary me, look what happened to Halter”
This reminds me of a conservative friend of mine who was trying to talk people into support Lincoln Chafee in his primary in 2006 and when I asked him why (he hated Chafee), he said “It’s Rhode Island and I don’t want to see Laffey get destroyed and be told ‘you can’t elect conservatives in blue states’”
If we know Halter can’t win, then we shouldn’t waste time on a kamikaze mission that is only going to hurt us.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:39 pm
@Nick:
@CalD:
Here’s the problem, though—right now, it looks like Lincoln has a snowball’s chance of being re-elected, so there’s not a lot of point to pouring resources into a race that she’s probably going to lose anyway.
I think there’s a pretty big vein of anti-incumbent feeling right now and I think that’s a big part of what swept Scott Brown into office. We can either have her Republican opponent use it against Lincoln as the incumbent, or we can have two non-incumbents fight it out, which I think gives us a better chance than trying to fight the anti-incumbent wave.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:47 pm
@Mnemosyne:
This is going to require Halter to run to the center once he wins the primary, which is bound to piss off someone, otherwise all it’s going to be is “Stupid Democrats toss out Lincoln for non-electable liberal. They are soooo not in touch with the people”
I mean either way (Lincoln wins primary, loses general=liberals stayed home) or (Halter wins primary, loses general=establishment didn’t support him or he ran to the right and alienated his base) is going to spun in a way that doesn’t put a bad light on the netroots.
I mean there are still people on blogs who think Scott Brown won because liberals stayed home because there was no public option, but cannot explain how that can be if Brown got more votes than McCain and Bush and Coakley won the highest number of votes for a losing Democratic candidate in Massachusetts since 1990.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:49 pm
Is kamikaze mission the right term if instead of blowing up a ship as you go down in flames, the enemy gets a new ship out of the deal? Seppuku would probably be a better analogy than kamikaze.
March 1st, 2010 at 6:52 pm
@Nick:
It’s going to be spun against the netroots no matter what, so I’d still rather have the guy who I think has a snowball’s chance of actually winning and not Lincoln, who’s already giving off the stink of defeat.
He is, by all accounts, slightly to the right of Lincoln, but at this point all I’d ask for is for him to always vote with Democrats for cloture even if he votes against the final bill. With the gridlock we have right now, that’s actually more important than his final vote.
I’m pretty convinced that Brown won because he never mentioned that he was a Republican. Apparently Coakley’s ads were the only ones that pointed that out.
I’m expecting a whole lot of stealth candidates this fall, with lots of “independent” candidates ranting against Washington and incumbents while running as Republicans. That is absolutely something we should be prepared for.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:04 pm
@Mnemosyne:
Has he given anyone any indication that he would? I’m sure we’re going to see a ‘I will oppose the President when he’s wrong” speech from him coming soon.
Which is exactly why he’s got a shelf life. The moment he comes out against repealing DOMA, his netroots fundraising will dry up and he’ll be left to the vultures. Look around you, they’re making him out to be Russ Feingold from the Ozarks.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:20 pm
Somebody above said the critical thing, which is that we want them not just wanting our money, but scared that we’ll turn on them. We did that to Lieberman, but the effect was blunted because of the loophole; still, we’re going to get him in 2012, and he knows it. If we do it to Lincoln this time, we start to get the point across that, yes, we prefer Dems, but, really, we prefer policies, and we’ll primary you if you’re bad enough.
As long as “Yeah, what are you going to do? Make it easier for a Republican to take the seat?” is a crushing riposte, we’re stuck. If the answer is “Yes, you know, I think I might…”, then the whole story changes. Suddenly, the threat of “I’m willing to take you down with my policies” is real.
And if there’s one thing politicians will respond to, it’s a real threat to their electability.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:32 pm
@ nick:
Totally agree. The left has sprouted a serious boner over this guy. Who the fuck is he?!
March 1st, 2010 at 7:37 pm
@demimondian:
yeah but that threat only leads to further weakening of your policies. If you take down a conservative Senator in a primary only to have your liberal replacement get slaughtered in a general election, all you’ve done is make your policies seem more unpopular and irrelevant and you’re LESS likely to see anyone endorse them and run with them.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:38 pm
I ran across an interesting factiod about Arkansas the other day, while looking for something else. I was comparing Bush/Kerry margins from 2004 to Obama/McCain margins, particularly in southern states, looking for evidence a racism factor. But in fact there were only two states in the entire country where Obama lost by a margin more than 1% greater than Kerry’s, and only one where Kerry did better than Obama by double digits: Arkansas
For some reason Kerry lost Arkansas by about 10 points to Bush and Obama lost there by a tad over 20%. Blanche Lincoln of course won a statewide election in Arkansas by about 10% 2004—a difference I would tend to attribute more to her politics than her race in Kerry’s case.
So heck yeah. Let’s all get onboard a primary challenge to Lincoln from the left, why don’t we? Fucking
retardedgreat idea!March 1st, 2010 at 7:40 pm
@Mnemosyne: So your solution is to do the Republicans’ work for them… Brilliant!
March 1st, 2010 at 7:41 pm
@CalD: What? That makes no sense if you believe Lincoln is toast no matter what. It DOES have force if you think Lincoln has a chance.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:48 pm
At the end of the day, you can have a majority party or you can have an ideologically pure one. You can’t have both. Not for long anyway. The country’s just not wired for that.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:52 pm
@CalD: This must be a recent development. Or an idiosyncratic one.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:55 pm
Irrational again. You asserted that Hamsher only discovered primarying in December of ‘09, but of course she is one of the founders of Accountability Now in 2008, the express purpose of which is to identify and support Primary challengers. You also blithely wave off the simple fact that Hamsher was at least three months (that’s when her involvement became direct and public, it could have been going on behind the scenes some time before that) ahead of John in jumping on the Halter bandwagon. You also ignore this, TV ads designed to pressure Lincoln, which FDL participated in last summer. So on this matter you’re simply making shit up.
Well that’s really hilarious coming from someone who apparently has no clue how to use search engines and find out what people say and when they say it. Instead you reduce everything to a few primal grunts. “Norquist
Norquist
Norquist
” Handy Hint of the Day: most blog sites have search engines where you can find out basic facts about the bloggers who run them, saving you the trouble of making shit up and embarrassing youself in public.
How can we forget when obsessive-compulsives remind us every five minutes? It’s a deuced shamed that this drives you to such apoplexy and that many famous progressives have co-signed letters with Norquist, and that John’s endorsement of Hamsher’s boy puts him a mere degree of separation from Grover’s conjugal bed, but do try to cope.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:57 pm
@gwangung:
At least if she loses to a Republican, you can try to make the argument that she wasn’t a big loss to the agenda…there was no liberal in the race, so it wasn’t a referendum on liberalism, or “hey, it’s Arkansas, so whatever”
But what happens if you beat her with a liberal and have him go down? How do you respond to the “Bill Clinton’s home state rejected liberals!” argument?
You can’t, because that’s exactly what happened and liberals are the ones who get beat for it.
March 1st, 2010 at 7:59 pm
@Nick: Sorry. I’m getting a little confused, then. Someone upthread said he was a little to the right of Lincoln. Others have said that he was polling well.
What’s the real state of affairs (cause reality kinda affects what I make of the situation).
March 1st, 2010 at 8:04 pm
@CalD: I do not believe you are understanding the point here. The point is that the Arkansas Republicans can run a bacon cheeseburger against Blanche Lincoln, and she’d still lose. At that point, ideology in primaries kind of starts to lose meaning.
March 1st, 2010 at 8:06 pm
@gwangung:
And if Democrats can’t hold the seat without her, as I am virtually certain is the case (unless someone wants to challenge her from the right) then what the hell would be the point of wasting resouces on a primary challenge? I absolutely would not call it a foregone conclusion that Lincoln is toast though. I wouldn’t rule out that continuing to fuck with her could help turn that into a self-fulfilling prophecy, but she’s got no ethics problems I’m aware of and she was pretty popular I think right up until the economy took a dump.
She’s got a tough race in front of her for sure, like a lot of other Democrats this year, but incumbents enjoy a 7% advantage on average over open-seat contenders of the same party and right now her opponents are still hypothetical in most people’s minds, even when they’re specifically named in polls. Real candidates are almost never as good as the hypothetical kind. Real ones come with lumps and bumps and track records. Once she’s got a real challenger, if she takes the initiative in aggressively defining them early in the race I would by no means rule out a turn-around for her, particularly if the economic climate improves before November.
March 1st, 2010 at 8:12 pm
@Sentient Puddle: Horse shit.
March 1st, 2010 at 8:13 pm
@CalD:
It really depends on why she’s running so poorly. Certainly, if she has a fighting chance for re-election, then screwing with her probably isn’t wise. On the other hand, if she’s running poorly because, oh, say, her behavior in health care reform, then a primary challenge might be worth it.
I got the impression that her problems were particular to her (and not anti-incumbency feelings) and that there was a chance for a slightly more liberal candidate to win. That said, I can very well be wrong—that’s why information and knowledge is helpful.
March 1st, 2010 at 8:20 pm
@gwangung: Go tell it to the Permanent Republican Majority.
March 1st, 2010 at 8:24 pm
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Actually, no, I asserted that Hamsher gave up on primarying and started allying herself with the teabaggers instead. Why else would I have been annoyed that she allied herself with Norquist instead of talking about primarying people since talking about primarying people was, you know, what I expected to hear from her?
It sounds like the source of the problem here is that you misunderstood what I said and went off on a tear claiming I said things that I clearly didn’t because you have something invested in believing I’m a newbie who never heard of GOS or Firedoglake until John told me about them. I was reading (and gave up on) Firedoglake long before John even turned left.
March 1st, 2010 at 8:29 pm
@gwangung:
Liberals are pissed at Lincoln for sure—and for good reason I think—but liberals are going to be a pretty minuscule segment of the Arkansas electorate and they’ll get over it in any case. I’m pretty sure that what she’s really fighting is anti-whoever’s-in-charge sentiment fueled primarily by the misery index.
March 1st, 2010 at 8:35 pm
@CalD:
No, my solution is to drop a hopeless candidate for one who might be able to pull out a victory since he already has a track record of being able to win statewide elections in Arkansas and will be able to run as a Washington outsider.
Frankly, I think that a win by Lincoln would make her even more intransigent than she is now because she would feel like her obstructionism had been approved by the voters. So re-electing her to the seat might have the same effect as electing the Republican.
March 1st, 2010 at 8:37 pm
@Mnemosyne:
I see that the American Conservative Union just released their 2009 voting scorecard ratings for all members of congress. Why don’t you go look up Lincoln’s score and compare it to the least offensive Republican you can find in the senate, then come back and lecture me about how we’d be no worse off with a Republican in her seat.
Here’s the link: http://www.acuratings.org/
Unless you’re prepared to back up that claim or provide a single shred of objective or even credible evidence that a more liberal democrat has a better chance of holding Lincoln’s seat than Lincoln does, then as far as I’m concerned this argument is completely pointless.
March 1st, 2010 at 8:56 pm
@gwangung:
Considering a considerably higher number of voters say she’s too liberal (including in the Democratic Party) rather than too conservative, that would mean, yes, her behavior on healthcare reform is costing her, but not in the way we’d like.
March 1st, 2010 at 9:05 pm
@Mnemosyne:
Much like Joe Lieberman.
March 1st, 2010 at 9:06 pm
@CalD:
With both Bayh and Nelson scoring almost the same as Snowe and Collins, it’s true that Lincoln is not the worst of the worst. That’s not an argument for propping up Lincoln.
I’m not saying that Lincoln should be abandoned if she wins the primary—I doubt anyone would say that. But to say that she shouldn’t even be primaryed because won’t someone please think of the children! is defeatist in the extreme. Do you really think that Lincoln is the absolute best that Arkansas can do?
March 1st, 2010 at 9:07 pm
@Mnemosyne:
Yes…absolutely.
March 1st, 2010 at 9:11 pm
@Mnemosyne:
Nice try, but Nelson, Snowe and Collins and Nelson all vote the ACU’s position about twice as often as Lincoln on average (2009 was an uncharacteristically bad year for Bayh). And of course Snowe and Collins are both head and shoulders above the Republican pack.
I made up a spreadsheet a while back and averaged up ACU lifetime scorecard ratings for all sitting senators, just out of curiousity. The average score for all Republicans was around 85% as I recall. The average score for all Democrats was a tad under 20%. Lincoln averages 24%. Nelson, Snowe and Collins all hover near the 50% mark.
This is to say that on average, the best Republican you can find in the senate is twice as bad as Blanche Lincoln. And I got news for you, the best Republican senator you’re going to get out of Arkansas is going to be no Susan Collins or Olympia Snow. Maine and Arkansas: two different things.
March 1st, 2010 at 9:29 pm
@CalD: If I were feeling generous, I would compile a list of recent polls showing Lincoln down by a metric shitton compared to various Republicans in order to prove that this is not “horse shit” as you describe it.
But I’m not feeling generous. lrn2google.
March 1st, 2010 at 9:32 pm
Oops, correction: Lincoln’s lifetime ACU rating is 19%, not 24.
March 1st, 2010 at 9:38 pm
@Sentient Puddle:
That’s true of Bill Halter too. In fact, Mike Beebe, who has a 70% approval rating and is winning the Governor’s race in a landslide, was polled in a Senate race and was tied with the Republicans.
The Republicans can run a bacon cheeseburger against Lincoln or ANY DEMOCRAT and win, because the good people of Arkansas want a teabagger representing them in the Senate.
March 1st, 2010 at 9:39 pm
John, is the widget working? I just contributed via this link, and the thermometer and side figures didn’t change.
I feel cheated of the tiny thrill of seeing my effect on the politicosphere. Sigh.
March 1st, 2010 at 9:55 pm
@Sentient Puddle:
Not to worry, I follow polls too. In the most recent poll I’ve seen of hypotheical head-to-heads in the Arkansas senate race, Lincoln beat 4 out of 6 Republican challengers outright and came within a nickel of the other two. That was a Mason-Dixon poll. Rasmussen had her farther back in his most recent, but that looks to have been a one-day poll, which is kind of odd. Anyway, there’s reason to think that perhaps whatever she’s been doing lately may be working.
March 1st, 2010 at 10:01 pm
Actually, I am shocked—SHOCKED!—that you change what you are saying from one minute to the next.
You:
“Has Jane Hamsher finally started talking about primarying people instead of telling us what a genius Grover Norquist is and how we should all be allying ourselves with the teabaggers? Funny, she sure kept her mouth shut about that option all spring and summer and fall”
This particular piece of idiocy is easily refuted by simply entering “hamsher,primary” in FDL’s search engine. Since your interest in facts is approximately zero and we can therefore presume you won’t be bothered I’ll leave it to any other interested reader to perform this exercise.
No, I understand it all too well. You are every bit as hysterical and tribalistic as any “teabagger” out there.
Where did this come from? Do you ever respond to WHAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY SAY? Do you even remember what you yourself have said from one post to the next?
This is all at about the level of a middle school clique for you, isn’t it. Jane Hamsher did something you don’t like, therefore anything she says or does is to be dismissed out of hand. Does this present you any difficulties because John has now given full throat to one of her pet projects? Or is it time to join another clique?
March 1st, 2010 at 10:17 pm
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
WTF are you talking about? I’ve been saying since this summer that I’m pissed off at Hamsher for dropping her strategy of primarying bad Democrats.
Remember the person who was ranting about how she would have been happy to join the mob with the torches led by Hamsher if Hamsher had bothered to stick to her strategy and say, “We are going to primary each and every one of you motherfuckers blocking healthcare” instead of teaming up with Norquist? That was me, dumbass. I’m sorry you lost the thread at some point, but I’ve been saying for months now that the reason I’m pissed at Hamsher was that she dropped that strategy and instead decided to team up with Norquist.
I didn’t realize that I would have to attach a signature to each and every one of my comments reiterating the exact same thing I’ve been saying for months now so dumbasses wouldn’t forget and start accusing me of changing what I said, but I guess I’ll have to now.
If you think that deciding that Jane Hamsher is a very bad political strategist because she thought it was really funny to post a picture on her blog of Joe Lieberman in blackface during the Connecticut senate election is based on tribalism and cliquishness then, yes, I guess you could try to reduce my beef against her to a middle school clique. It would be silly, but that’s never stopped you before.
March 1st, 2010 at 10:32 pm
@CalD:
I’m still not getting why you think there’s no possible way that current lieutenant governor of Arkansas could win the Senate seat if he beat Lincoln in the primary. If another Democrat with a record of success in statewide politics can’t beat the Republican, then Lincoln sure as hell isn’t going to be able to do it and we’re right back to square one anyway.
How do you picture Lincoln winning the seat if Halter is doomed from the start because he’s a Democrat?
March 1st, 2010 at 10:38 pm
@Mnemosyne:
LOL. When all else fails, trot out a straw man eh? If you prefer to provide both sides of the argument yourself though, you obviously don’t need me. Have yourself a party.
March 2nd, 2010 at 1:01 am
A great many things, one or two of which you pull out randomly in every reply and rail against incoherently. See you in the next thread, clown.
March 2nd, 2010 at 12:59 pm